here, in an unseen world, wherein, when our palpable life is ended, we
shall continue to live for a shorter or longer time--reaping roughly,
though not infallibly, much as we have sown. Of this unseen world the
best men and women will be almost as heedless while in the flesh as they
will be when their life in flesh is over; for, as the Sunchild often
said, 'The Kingdom of Heaven cometh not by observation.' It will be all
in all to them, and at the same time nothing, for the better people they
are, the less they will think of anything but this present life.

"What an ineffable contradiction in terms have we not here. What a
reversal, is it not, of all this world's canons, that we should hold even
the best of all that we can know or feel in this life to be a poor thing
as compared with hopes the fulfilment of which we can never either feel
or know. Yet we all hold this, however little we may admit it to
ourselves. For the world at heart despises its own canons."

I cannot quote further from Dr. Gurgoyle's pamphlet; suffice it that he
presently dealt with those who say that it is not right of any man to aim
at thrusting himself in among the living when he has had his day. "Let
him die," say they, "and let die as his fathers before him." He argued
that as we had a right to pester people till we got ourselves born, so
also we have a right to pester them for extension of life beyond the
grave. Life, whether before the grave or afterwards, is like love--all
reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it. Instinct on such
matters is the older and safer guide; no one, therefore, should seek to
efface himself as regards the next world more than as regards this. If
he is to be effaced, let others efface him; do not let him commit
suicide. Freely we have received; freely, therefore, let us take as much
more as we can get, and let it be a stand-up fight between ourselves and
posterity to see whether it can get rid of us or no. If it can, let it;
if it cannot, it must put up with us. It can better care for itself than
we can for ourselves when the breath is out of us.

Not the least important duty, he continued, of posterity towards itself
lies in passing righteous judgement on the forbears who stand up before
it. They should be allowed the benefit of a doubt, and peccadilloes
should be ignored; but when no doubt exists that a man was engrainedly
mean and cowardly, his reputation must remain in the Purgatory of